UPDATE: Rutgers University President Robert Barchi announced Tuesday afternoon that Eric LeGrand will speak at graduation, along with former Gov. Tom Kean, and called it all a "miscommunication."

Eric LeGrand has been celebrated for the inspirational way he has handled his devastating injury – for the class, dignity and perseverance that leave anyone who spends five minutes around him in awe.

But he is more than that at Rutgers now, much more on that campus and in that community. Because when you see his smiling face on those Subway commercials, or on the cover of Sports Illustrated, or in his ongoing efforts to raise money for the Christopher Reeve Foundation, it is impossible not to reach one conclusion:

He is the best representative of that entire university.

So he was a brilliant choice as commencement speaker, especially given how the choice of Condoleezza Rice had divided the campus. She pulled out in the wake of student protests, saying her invitation had become “a distraction for the university community at this very special time.”

Who could possibly protest Eric LeGrand? Who wouldn’t want to listen to his inspirational message on a day that is supposed to be about the graduates charging into a new life and meeting those challenges?

Well, of course, we know the answer: Rutgers. He was offered the chance to speak last week, when Greg Jackson, the chief of staff for President Robert Barchi, called him and asked for a “favor.”

“I was like, ‘Wow, thank you for offering,’” LeGrand told NJ.com. “He goes, ‘Yeah, absolutely. Talk it over with your family this weekend. Let’s touch base again Monday.’ I was all amped all weekend. I was like, ‘This is perfect. I’m going to have to give a speech to everybody.’”

Then Monday came, and this time, it was athletic director Julie Hermann delivering the news: Rutgers had gone in a different direction "for political reasons." Former Gov. Tom Kean was announced as the choice Monday afternoon, and LeGrand was left stunned and hurt.

And just when you thought Rutgers couldn’t screw something up any worse, just when you thought the leadership incompetence could not climb any higher, it insults the inspirational kid in the wheelchair.

It pulls the old bait and switch on the one human being who, more than anyone I’ve ever met, lives, eats and breathes Rutgers in the most unvarnished, positive way.

“I just want an explanation,” LeGrand said. “I wish somebody would have given me a call tonight and explained to me why. Then I can understand, but don’t just leave me hanging.”

He needs more than that. He needs an apology, from Barchi and Jackson and Hermann and anyone else involved in this awful decision. He needs to have that offer to speak reinstated, and Rutgers can only hope LeGrand is gracious enough to accept and give that speech on May 18.

Barchi, the empty suit who didn't bother to watch the Mike Rice tape until it was too late, has another whopper of a self-inflicted wound on his hands. But this one, while it is almost more inexplicable, is at least fixable.

Kean has survived in New Jersey politics for decades, so he’ll know enough to step aside – or, even better yet, to share the podium with LeGrand. Let them both speak. But if the leadership at Rutgers is too tone deaf to solve this mess – one that, as usual, is of its creation – then we’ll know it is forever hopeless.

LeGrand deserves better. Rutgers deserves better. No one in years has given back to that university community more than Eric LeGrand, the embodiment of that Scarlet R. And this is how they treat him?